A reputed member of an Outfit-connected drug ring charged with robbing cartel stash houses also is charged with federal extortion in the beating of a McHenry County man who owed him money and allegedly paying an associate to torch the man's house and car.

Robert Panozzo, 54, was charged in a four-count indictment in April in federal court in Rockford and unsealed after Panozzo's arrest on state racketeering charges last week, court records show.

The indictment alleged Panozzo had loaned a McHenry County businessman — identified in the charges only as "Victim 1" — tens of thousands of dollars beginning in about 2005. At a meeting in a Palatine restaurant in 2006, Victim 1 gave Panozzo an envelope containing $25,000 in cash, thinking that would settle his debt, the charges alleged.

Panozzo, however, told the victim he still owed him $100,000 and warned him, "This is serious. I want my money," according to the charges.

Later that year, Panozzo and his alleged accomplice — Joseph Abbott, who is also charged — as well as others confronted the victim at his workplace and demanded he pay up, prosecutors said. When the victim said he didn't have the money, they beat him up, the charges alleged.

Panozzo was convicted that fall of 2006 for participating in a sophisticated burglary ring and was sentenced to 7 years in prison. When he was released in 2008, he resumed his demands for payment from Victim 1, leaving harassing and threatening voice mails at his home and instructing Abbott to leave notes at the victim's house demanding a meeting, the charges alleged.

In February 2009, Panozzo allegedly paid Abbott $1,000 to torch the victim's Dodge Caravan as it sat in the man's driveway, the charges alleged. Two months later, Panozzo paid Abbott another $5,000 to "blow up" the victim's residence. Abbott later used an incendiary device to ignite several trash cans and the man's garage, according to the indictment.

Abbott was charged in January with several extortion-related counts related to the scheme and is awaiting trial in Rockford, court records show.

Panozzo and longtime associate Paul Koroluk, 55, are part of a Grand Avenue Outfit crew run by Albert "Little Guy" Vena, according to sources and court testimony in the federal trial of Steven Mandell, a former Chicago police officer who was convicted in February in a grisly plot to kill a suburban businessman.

The crew came to investigators' attention in October, when law enforcement uncovered evidence that Panozzo tried to have a witness in a home invasion and kidnapping case murdered to prevent the witness from testifying at trial against crew members, Cook County prosecutors said at a bond hearing Saturday on the racketeering charges.

Also arrested on the county charges were Koroluk; Maher Abuhabsah, 33; Panozzo's son, Robert Jr., 22; and Koroluk's wife, Maria, 53, who is a $97,000-a-year director with the Cook County assessor's office, records show.

The sweeping racketeering charges against the four men alleged they participated in a slew of crimes, including home invasions, armed robberies, burglaries, insurance fraud and prostitution. The crew allegedly carried out five or six major "rips" a year, robbing drug stash houses while posing as police officers. Prosecutors said the crew used sophisticated methods, including attaching GPS trackers to dealers' cars to find where they stashed their drugs.

During a home invasion last year, the elder Panozzo allegedly sliced off the ear of a victim after he heard the man speaking English when he'd claimed that he only spoke Spanish, the charges alleged.